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Obituary: Carl D. Lohmann ’63

Carl Donald Lohmann died peacefully at home in Summit, NJ on April 25, 2020 with his loving wife Lorelei by his side. Carl was born on June 22, 1942 in Chicago, IL, and spent his childhood in Wautoma, WI with his parents, Carl and Winifred Lohmann. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1959-63, where he worked for the Daily Cardinal newspaper, was a proud member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and was elected to the Iron Cross Society. He married a classmate, Joanne DeNike, in June, shortly after graduation. They moved to Cambridge, MA, where Carl attended Harvard Law School, during which time he was asked to join the Harvard Law Review staff. Carl graduated in 1966, and as a result of his high standing, was awarded a traveling fellowship which allowed him and his wife to travel for a year in Europe and North Africa. Upon returning in 1967, Carl worked for the law firm of Cravath, Swain and Moore in New York City, and their first child, Eric, was born in 1968. In 1969 the family went to Belgrade, Yugoslavia for two years to allow Carl to study and research socialist law, during which time their daughter, Stefanie, was born. Returning to the states in 1971, the family lived in Boston, and Carl worked in a Boston law firm. Divorced in 1973, Carl eventually moved back to New York City, where he worked for AT&T and met his wife, Lorelei Burns, whom he married in 1984. Carl became an avid sailor during the early ‘80’s and shared his love of sailing with his family whenever he could get on the water. Their first daughter, Anneliese, was born in 1986, and their second, Hilary, in 1988. They were taught to sail on the family boat, Plainsong, from a young age, and the family spent their happiest times on the water. In the aftermath of 9/11, Carl switched gears and trained to become an EMT. He worked for years in Summit, NJ for the Summit Emergency Medical Squad and trained many subsequent groups of first responders. These were some of the most meaningful years of his life. Carl will be remembered for loving rare steak and oysters; the ballet; Newport and Mystic, CT, Sag Harbor, NY, and Block Island, RI, all places he sailed with family; UW-Madison and his fraternity brothers, Harvard and Stanford; the Book of Common Prayer; Art Buchwald; Gisela, the family dog and in the end, the red finch and the woodpecker that visited his bird feeder.

Carl is survived by his wife, Lorelei, his children Eric, Stefanie, Anneliese and Hilary, sons-in-law Jorge and Alex, and grandchildren Madeleine, Cristiano and Evelyn, and his former wife, Joanne.

Donations in Carl’s honor may be made to the Summit Emergency Medical Squad https://summitems.org/donate/ and Earth Justice https://earthjustice.org/ “Because the Earth Needs a Good Lawyer”.

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